and the TRUTH shall set thee FREE
by Penultima
Summary: He gets one chance. One final chance to show the world who he was, what he felt, what he had said, what he did and what it was like. One chance to show them the truth. And that alone would set him free. (slight HL)


_His hand trembled on top of the empty parchment. Quill poised at the ready, his mind turning, spinning, seething with anger and disappointment._

Is this what you do for me?

_Instantly his left hand began to sting, and blood lined the surface of his skin, and then sank deeper, falling to rest under his_ _skin. _(like a promise, a vow, an eternal epitaph carved in his flesh)

You abandon me when I need you most, but you fawn over me when I go about my life and become the hero.

_But his hand was more certain this time. Moving up and down and sideways over the paper and allowing the closed wound to bleed afresh._

When I fall apart you turn away and leave me to crumble. But when I become the last man standing, you cheer and shout for my victory, for the honor and glory I have brought upon myself.

My words are silenced in the lies you make up to cover my faults. My truths sink into oblivion in the fables and exaggerations in your recorded history. You are deaf to my stories, to what I have to say. You refuse to understand the reality of it all. You reject the truth that I never did this for myself.

_He could not stop writing, his hand moved automatically over the paper, fingers pressing harder on the quill as the pain burrowed deeper_ (sinking like a virus and gouging out the blood, the hope, the life out of him)_. Tears blurred his eyes, but he would not let them fall._

I am the prince in those legends, in those soon-to-be fairytales. In your stories I send blinding lights from my wand with a glorious smile on my face, and return, battleworn but alive, happy and victorious, to my castle, my princess, who smiles and welcomes me home.

This is a lie. All of it. But will you listen? No.

_The figure beside his bed bit her lip, and lowered her eyes to the paper in front of him. He could feel her gaze moving back towards his face. He did not pause, but passed her a reassuring smile and looked back at the parchment in front of him. At the bright red letters glaring back at him with all the disappointment and all the grudge he had poured into those words._

I don't strut confidently through the battlefield. I don't smile as I send curses and spells and make my opponents bow before me in fear. I don't walk home with a grin on my face and arms wide open to hug my beloved. No. None of this is true.

But I can't say anything. Because you won't let me. Lately, I found out why.

You never helped me.

_He pulls back in surprise as the pattern of the wounds change. He looks at his hand, at the letters that have lost shape and begun to grip at his wrist, creeping into the skin of his arms and sinking, again, but deeper, biting down on his flesh with a vengeance. He pursed his lip and continued, biting back the pain. _

All that time, through the blood and the pain and the losses I had to suffer, you were never there. Those scant few who knew, who helped me, who sought to spread the truth; you silenced them too. You knew how they could not hurt the people, how they could never _bear_ to tell them the bad news. They could never tell everyone how you—they—no, all of you, how you have deserted me when I needed you most, how you never believed me, how you left me to fend for my own.

I hated you for this, but how could I say this? How could I tell those other people; those who believed I needed no help and didn't help me because they didn't know? No, I didn't tell you anything.

I tried all I could, tried to show you, gave you snide hints. My unkempt quarters, my discomfort around you, the way I would tremble at the notion of death. You never understood.

_A hand gingerly placed itself over the scarred surface of his arm. He gasped and looked at the woman beside him. Tears are falling unchecked over her cheeks, streaming from their source like a spring of bitter water as she looks at him and pleads for him to stop. _(he's hurting himself again, for people he doesn't know)

If _this_ is the only way, then let it be.

I didn't smile when I killed him, when I knocked him and placed trembling fingers around his neck, when I cried and prayed it would end soon, when I nearly screamed in my despair and hoped the killing would stop. When I trembled and died as all the compassion I had for the worlds left me.

I didn't return on my own two feet, with a smile on my face and a laugh to match my lady's when she ran into my open arms. No. I returned with broken bones, a broken heart and a crushed faith. She did not pour tears of relief, of happiness. No. She wept in despair, in knowing how broken I was. She wept because of what you did to me, because she did not know what to do. She helped me anyway.

She didn't use spells or come with me to battle. She did not fight you, shout and yell in my defense. She sat still and silent by the window whenever I left, whenever I was gone fighting my way through, trying to defend myself. She prayed and wept but did not realize she helped me much more than she ever knew.

(for people he won't know, for people he's not sure will ever understand his hopes, his dreams, his wishes. People who will never understand what it's like to be him) _He smiles, shakes the tears out of his own eyes, shakes the blood free from his reddened hand, and weeping, trembling, pours his heart out to people who will never listen._

It was never a big enough sacrifice to throw away my life for the world, for all those thousands of people who I never knew and would never know. If ever, I hated them. She gave me a reason, a purpose in life. She gave me something I could hold on to, even in my battles when I clung for dear life by a thread.

She gave me someone to come home to. Someone to belong to.

What did you do?

You ridiculed me, taunted me, abandoned me. It's only fitting that I do the same.

_The lady beside the bed is sobbing, and he can't help but cry. His breath comes in shuddering heaves, and his emaciated arm is nearly falling apart. Every move of his arm causes his muscles to tear, causes spasms of pain to shoot into his muddled brain._

This, my dear _supporters_ is why I stopped trying to get you to believe in me at all. What have I to say to ears that do not listen? What do I have to do with people who won't do anything for the very person they depend on to keep them alive?

I did all I could for you, fought, died, lived, and died some more. Not for me, but for _you_. I know I deserve the ending I want. And this is how I want it. Without any of you watching, without any of you, caring, knowing that at this very moment I am dying, bleeding out my complaints and my truths. Tearing my skin and flesh and bone to discover the truth you tried to shut up in me. I have found it. In it I have also found release.

_She wraps her arms around him, buries her face in his shoulder. They share their tears, their broken hopes, their broken fate and broken ending. He weeps, the tears still falling, dripping, seeping into the paper, but the words won't wear away. They're buried too deep to come off so easily._ (he will never be forgotten, never be erased from their memory. This bitterness would always be remembered, would always exist, the pain will not subside until he is free.)

I hope you're sorry now. I hope you'll keep those legends and tell it to your children and grandchildren with tears in your eyes because you finally know it's not true. I hope you'll stop expressing false pity for me. I hope you'll stop crying empty tears and stand silent unless you really mean it.

I hope you can really see me now. I hope you'll see me for who I am. I hope I've done the right choices, made the right moves, said the right things. I hope I've lived my life to the fullest, I hope I'm right in thinking my years have lasted longer than you would know, that I earn enough respect as those people you paint and speak of with such appreciation that they will never be forgotten.

I hope you're happy now.

I can only hope I will be.

_He drops the quill unto the paper. The blood on his arm falls unto the paper, but happily, quickly slides away, falling away from its surface and burns itself into the covers. The woman has stopped sobbing now. She knows it's all over. He turns slowly towards her and tear-stricken eyes meet. _

_Their broken wishes collide and together they weep for everything lost and all those things they never got. She knows it's all over and holds him closer, the closest before the ending comes. She knows it so well. He throws his bloodied arms around her and cries, because he knows it too._

_Author's Notes:_ Some of my reviewers have noted I tend to put blank spaces between my story and my notes. This is just so you get at least a flashing second in which you can think about the story and ponder its meaning... who amI kidding.

It just looks good, okay? -

Please review; constructive critiscism is the best gift you can give me. -


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